Monster
by Chibi-Shibi
Summary: If the benchmark is extraordinary, what do you do if you're not?


**A/N: ****For the Quidditch League Fanfic Competition, Round 6.**

**Chaser 3, Pride of Portree**

**Main Prompt: Infidelity/False Infidelity. Write about an accusation of unfaithfulness in a relationship and the aftermath of this.**

**Optional Prompts:**

**7\. (emotion) disappointment**

**12\. (word) monster**

**2\. (quote) 'If the benchmark is extraordinary, what do you do if you're not?' — Vanya Hargreeves, The Umbrella Academy**

**Word Count: 1169 (google docs) **

She's asleep. I can see the soft rising and falling of her chest as she breathes in the darkness of our bedroom. I wait for a while, just to be safe. I have nothing to do in this stillness; so I stare aimlessly at the ceiling, and question myself again.

I make sure she doesn't stir for a few minutes, and quietly roll out of the bed. I head to the rack of clothes, and grab the closest items. It doesn't matter, really. I look back to check if she is asleep one last time.

She isn't. She is staring at me, with a quiet calm in her eyes.

"Today, Ron?" she asks, hidden disappointment lacing her voice. I can tell she is trying to hold back the tears.

_Today_ is her birthday, I suppose, it is past twelve already. I feel the guilt rise, almost choking me as I realise.

But, there is something else I see in her eyes. _She knows? _I realise. _She has known for a while. She has made her peace with it._ _Brightest Witch of Our Age, after all. _I cannot believe I thought it was even possible to fool her, but finding out is like a bucket of ice being dumped all over me. What is worse, is that she is not upset, _not anymore, at least. _Even though I just realised that we both clearly know I do this every single night. She's upset because I have no tact, no self-restraint. I cannot stop myself, not even on her birthday, not even for one night.

And she's right. I don't. I can't.

She's sitting up on the bed - our bed, the bed that I am leaving, for the arms of some strange woman. Her expression is painful to see; everything that my betrayal makes her feel is there in her anguish-filled eyes. I wonder if she will use that old spell to carve out 'CHEAT' on my head with boils? Or maybe she will send canaries to attack me? She would be well within her rights to do either. But she won't, as we both know.

I can't look at her in her eyes. I'm scared of what I will find; not accusation, but acceptance, not disdain, but disappointment. I run out of the room, out of the house instead.

I don't need her to be disappointed in me; I am filled with enough self-loathing as it is. I wonder if she thinks I am doing this because she is lacking in some way? The very thought makes my heart wrench in pain. _Another thing you failed at,_ that treacherous little voice tells me. _You couldn't even see her eye to eye. You can't tell her why you're doing this to her. Coward. _

_Because I'm not enough. I'm not enough for her. I never will be._ I want to scream the words out loud into the empty night, but I can only whisper them in my head, taunting myself.

She's...she's extraordinary. She's smart, beautiful and perfect. And I'm … not. I'm the one the Golden Trio could have done without. I was the one in the corner, afraid. I was the one that was detrimental to our cause, and she and Harry struggled to save the world. Even now, they do so much more than me, and they do it so well, in tandem. They belong together, the golden children of the wizarding world. While I bask off of the reflected glory, of old fame, of things that don't matter anymore. I also help run a joke shop my dead brother founded … changing the world, one prank at a time. It sometimes makes me wonder if that is all this is. Some big prank, that life decided to play on her.

I keep walking, no, dragging my feet. It is more out of habit, heading towards _that place. _A place that I hate so much, but it draws me in, everytime. My misery is like a moth to the flame. It feels like a walk of shame, and I suppose it is.

Knockturn Alley seems darker tonight. _I wonder why? _I ask myself, a hollow-sounding laugh escapes unbidden, mocking me as I walk up to the door of the filthy building and knock.

The woman who opens the door, as always, has a sickeningly sweet smile plastered on her rouged face. Her perfume, mixed with the heady scent of the acts being committed inside wafts past me, making bile rise in my throat. She recognises me. That very fact makes me furious once more, at myself, and I push past her, without waiting for her to step aside.

I pass by the other men - men that I had once looked down on - at the sorry excuse for a reception desk. I give the owner of this despicable place a slight nod, and head straight to the rickety door behind which I know a stranger will be waiting for me. _Again._

I enter the room, and hold out the vial of Polyjuice to the girl. I see her locks of black as she brushes past me '_seductively'_, but I don't care nearly enough. At least not until she has taken the potion and looks just like who I need her to look like.

I almost laugh at myself. As does the voice inside me. _A man, escaping the 'ties of his marriage', disappointing her, breaking her trust, on her birthday, no less. Wasting hard earned money on potions and women. All for this?_ I grit my teeth at the disappointment and shame I have in myself and turn my eyes back to the woman on the bed.

As I approach her, I wonder what I am. A liar? An unfaithful husband? A cheat? A _monster? _The last of those describes me perfectly, and the thoughts make me sick, as I want them to, because I deserve it. After all, she could have had any wizard in the country, and then some. She picked _me_, and I betrayed her.

When they find out tomorrow, Harry, Ginny, Mum, and everyone else, I wonder what they will think of me. I'm half expecting a Howler from Mum when I wake up to an empty bed - she can't possibly stay beyond tonight. In fact, she will probably be gone by the time I get home.

She doesn't know, and she will never understand why I did this - _do _this. I truly am the villain in her story. But in this moment, I don't _want _to be that monster. I want to be the man that is caressing and making love to his wife, and so I hold on to her, and bury my face in her bushy curls. She smells nothing like my wife, the woman I love, but I take what I can get.

_If the benchmark is extraordinary, what do you do if you're not?_

_Become the monster._

I want to be a lover tonight. The monster can wait for the morning.


End file.
